Archive for the Category » dogma «

The upgrade to WordPress 3 was long overdue (as are many draft articles). Surprisingly, nothing looks different since the upgrade has been completed, though I also would not be surprised if I’ve missed an important plugin breakage.

I’ll be spending a day this weekend solely on polishing the site and finishing up some articles. You have something to look forward to. 🙂

I’m looking at the South African banking system (partly a result of watching the Zeitgeist “documentary”) i, after finding my bank implicated most with regards to theSA-Banking Competition Commission wikileaks scandal, I’m putting serious consideration into switching banks.

What ethical banks are out there right now? I’ve even looked intoSharia (Islamic) banking because of their strict ethics laws but even there I’m looking at even more unknowns. I’m not Islamic and I have nothing against funding pork-related activities.

On that note, do you know if your bank has a code of ethics? If they’re public, where can we see these ethics codes?

Tell me about service levels I haven’t heard of before and which bank you believe deserves to handle my money.

Have you previously realised that www is redundant? If so, I’m preaching to the converted and you can run along back to whatever you were busy with. 😉 Otherwise, stand to attention, soldier!

begin rantish text:

When I’m browsing the web, I’d much less prefer to type “www.xkcd.com” than “xkcd.com”. Reason being that if *every* site has to have w’s, what’s the point of the w’s? Not to mention that they’re a bitch to pronounce. There’s 9 syllables in there! You couldalmosthalve that by saying “triple-w”. I’ve heard people say “dub dub dub”. Bleh. Even theWorld Wide Web Consortiumprefers to call themselves “W3C”.

So what exactly is (was?) the point of the www? There might be more to it, however the gist of it appears to be that whenTim Berners-Leefirst created the hypertext document retrieval system, he called it “World Wide Web”. I believe that www became a standard not because it made sense or because it was a good idea, but because it was hyped far beyond the healthy respect it deserved.

Your web browser *knows* you’re dealing with web content solely by the fact that there’s an http:// in front of the url. Therefore I submit, the www is redundant.

Need more convincing?

Search engines see www.dogma.swiftspirit.co.za and dogma.swiftspirit.co.za as 2 separate web sites. Because both sites have identical content, search engines might lower your Search Rankings. Hell, you’d be competing against yourself for rankings. Silly example: instead of 3rd, you might be 5thi 7th. For this reason, it is better to either force www or to force no www. I’m in favour of the latter.

Why is it that we’re so gullible?

I even considered for a whole second that my colleague had cross-checked the following SPAM before posting it on ourIRLnoticeboard. Please note that the following text originally had really bad-for-your-eyes fonts andcolours. 😉

Urgent Warning fromCell C, Vodacom & MTN!

[business card of a “Legal Representative” of the Special Investigating Unit]

Dear All,If you receive a phone call on your mobile from any person, saying that, he or she isa company engineer, or saying that they’re checking your mobile line, and you haveto press # 90 or #09 or any other number.End this call immediately without pressing any numbers.There is a fraud company using a device that once you press #90 or #09 they canaccess your ‘SIM’ card and make calls at your expense.Forward this message to as many friends as you can, to stop it.All mobile users pay attention if you receive a phone call and your mobile phonedisplays (XALAN) on the screen don’t answer the call, END THE CALL IMMEDIATELY,if you answer the call, your phone will be infected by a virus..This virus will erase all IMEI and IMSI information from both your phone and your SIMcard, which will make your phone unable to connect with the telephone network. Youwill have to buy a new phone. This information has been confirmed by both Motorolaand Nokia.PLEASE FORWARD THIS PIECE OF INFORMATION TOALL YOUR FRIENDS HAVING A MOBILE.

The first things that got me thinking was the text denoting authority at the top of the page. Now, bear in mind this is on a noticeboard – not my inbox where my anti-spam senses are at their peak.

Who could possibly have the authority to say they’re sending out a notification on behalf of each of South Africa’s tri-opoly ofGSMproviders? Okay, so its some “Special” Legal team that sounds government-type. They’re legit – itturnsout – but they probably don’t have enough time to take my call asking if this is all true. Absolutely everything on the Internet must be true, especially anything I say. 😛

So anyway, now that we’re over the silliness, let’s break this hoax down:

Official Documentation

Bar a business card, which is hardly standard in any industry, there is no official contact information. I’d expect at least a letterhead or amisguidedtrailing disclaimer.

Presentation and Language

There are actually 2 notices here regarding separate threats however it isn’t obvious without reading the text in full. This is because the paragraphing and grammar are very poor. Government institutions don’t normally issue poorly-worded or paragraphed documentation. takođe, why not issue a separate notification regarding each threat separately?

There are no links to further resources

Any warning of this sort would undoubtedly offer further information or advertise the online presence of theinstitution. takođe, perhaps they’d like for you to give feedback on the situation or maybe they’d like us to report on further suspicious activity. But no. Nothing. Just a specific representative’s business card. What if the guy dies, finds a better job, orleavesthe country?

“There is a fraud company … “

This means that they haven’t any clue who it is. This is a broad and passive statement. Question whenever someone says “they” or “people who”. Who is this “fraud company”? Where is “there”? And why doesn’t this crack government legal team (who have to use chain mail to spread warnings) let us know through their uber-powerful chain mail network?

“Forward this message to as many friends as you can”

My, oh my. This line has probably been in every chain letter / social engineering virus (my special definition) since sliced bread.

“This information has been confirmed by both Motorola and Nokia.”

They’re trying to prevent you from thinking for yourself and try to verify their claims independently. They’re saying “You’re stupid to check. We already checked for you. :-D”. Naravno, in reality, they’re just trying to take advantage of our gullible nature.

“#90 or #09” i “XALAN”

There isn’t any way for you to verify this. Again, question everything. Google’s first page of results is riddled with the words “Cell phone warning hoax”. duh.

If you get a message like the above from your friends, reply and tell them to stop sending spam… and maybe give them a link to this page so they know why. 🙂